Walking Tour of San Francisco Protests: Political tourism in the Age of Obama

I've already published an extensive photo essay about this stop on the tour, so rather than re-publish it, I encourage everyone who hasn't already seen it to click this link and read the full account of what happened here at Civic Center:

In short: Left-wing counter-protesters announced that they would gather at Civic Center to prepare their infiltration of the conservative Tea Party later in the day. Only a few people actually showed up, as you can see.

While the latecomers are reading the original essay linked above, the rest of us on the tour can amuse ourselves by looking at some of the other "coverage" of this event which appeared on other sites. In particular, the writer of this bizarre article in the far-left San Francisco Bay Guardian mistakenly thought that this counter-protest was the Tea Party, and then he proceeds to mock the conservatives for their meager turnout and for being outnumbered by counter-protesters at their own protest. The commenters on the article all chime in and agree, heaping scorn on the handful of possible real Tea Partiers at Civic Center. From the article:

For all the hype about Tax Day Tea Parties, include two in San Francisco this afternoon, it was progressive causes that put the most protesters on the streets today. In fact, at a 1 p.m. Tea Party outside City Hall, the teabaggers were way outnumbered by journalists and satirical "teabaggers" doing street theater.

For awhile, 70-year-old Al Anolik -- clad in his American flag shirt and NRA hat -- was the only teabagger present, although he was joined by 23-year-old Odell Howard (wearing his American flag on his hat) at about 1:20 p.m. Another pair arrived later, making it four in all.

"It is San Francisco," Anolik offered by way of explaining the anemic gathering.

One wonders: Could the leftists in San Francisco be that clueless? Did they really not know that a huge real Tea Party happened later the same day in Union Square?

No. Something even more preposterous is afoot.

Note especially this comment left at the Bay Guardian article:

I was one of the satirical group, Billionaires for Wealthcare at the Civic Center gathering. I observed that the "tea party" people mostly took a long time to catch on that we were doing satire and some of them never got it at all. No matter what outlandish political or economic statement we made, someone in their little band would agree with us.

As for the claim that they are just patriots expressing their patriotic views, when the TV journalist showed up, one of their small number immediately gave her the finger while he shouted "F...the liberal media." Another tea party sympathizer did a rant at us full of sexual language which I am too embarrassed to repeat here.

And it struck me: The purpose behind this widely announced Civic Center gathering was not to prepare to go invade the actual Tea Party, but rather to advertise it as the real Tea Party itself, in order to confuse hapless conservatives who would show up in Civic Center at the wrong place and time, only to serve as fodder for left-wing jibes -- and simultaneously siphoning off attendees from the authentic event later in the day.

The fact that only two possible real Tea Partiers showed up at Civic Center, and did so consciously as a way to counter-disrupt this phony event, shows that the left-wingers' plan failed even more spectacularly that I had previously realized.

But it's even worse than that. In the comment cited above, one of the left-wing protesters said, "One of their [the Tea Partiers] small number immediately gave her the finger while he shouted 'F...the liberal media.'"

Hold on! That moment was captured on film. And it turns out that the "right-winger" who shouted "Fuck the liberal media" was not a right-winger at all, but actually yet another left-wing infiltrator, in this case posing as a redneck reporter for "Right Wing Media."

I kid you not. Watch this incredibly inept attempt at acting by a college-age left-wing activist trying to convince us that he's an ignorant hick (all the revelant action is in the first two minutes of the video; you can stop watching after that):

Notice how he titles the video "Tea Party Visits The Fag Capitol," and lists his interests as "mustangs, family values, anal." No matter how hard they try, the leftist would-be infiltrators just can't can't keep in character, and always resort to juvenile attempts at mockery.

I finally realized that he was probably a member of that "Billionaires for Wealthcare" satirical troup himself, and that his faux redneck act was part of the whole skit. Layers upon layers upon layers of convoluted failure.

The tour group will now take a break for lunch, before we head off to the last stop...